The bright idea no one is backing

Imagine boarding a sleek, eco-friendly train in Stockton that whisks 200-plus mph through nice country to Los Angeles in under two hours and charges lower fares than airlines.

Michael Fitzgerald

Imagine boarding a sleek, eco-friendly train in Stockton that whisks 200-plus mph through nice country to Los Angeles in under two hours and charges lower fares than airlines.

Welcome to the brightest idea with the dimmest prospects: California high-speed rail.

The California High Speed Rail Authority held a public meeting last week in Stockton. The train's proposed route is under discussion. Local transportation officials lobbied for a Stockton link.

Unfortunately, the governor's indifference to high-speed rail and the public "huh?" factor to this potential bonanza for the Valley do not bode well for its future.

To sum up opponents' arguments: $40 billion, doubts about ridership, no private money forthcoming. Higher priorities, like water for Southern California.

The call for private investment is puzzling. This is not a dam primarily benefiting special interests. This is public transportation, serving Sacramento, the Bay Area, the Central Valley and Southern California. Do leaders require private capital to build freeways?

Also puzzling, considering California's projected growth, is the notion that high-speed rail is a luxury.

Statewide, the cost of upgrading the highways and airports will be two or three times greater than high-speed rail, said Carrie Pourvahidi, the Rail Authority's deputy director.

"How can you not afford to do it?" Pourvahidi asked.

Besides whooshing from Stockton to San Francisco over the Altamont in 45 minutes, restoring sanity to 50,000 road-weary commuters, the line's construction will bring jobs.

But the biggest economic benefit of a line projected to carry 117 million people is the number of riders via Stockton - the equivalent of having a freeway come through.

A downtown station would give the city center a commercial boost, raise its profile statewide and link to local public transit.

Yet the governor and legislature keep the Rail Authority's budget between diet and life support. A statewide bond vote has been repeatedly postponed. It is now supposed to be on the November ballot. Don't bank on it.

What saddens is not that high-speed rail may lose out to other state funding priorities. That's politics. It's the timidity. It's the worldly wise bemusement with which some dismiss high-speed rail, as if its futurism were so far out it would be necessary to defrost Walt Disney to build it.

Remember California, the trend-setter? It's almost as if we've forgotten how to be California. We're more concerned with prisons and dams.

The dysfunctional state government can respond only to crises. In this climate, progressive solutions really do look fanciful.